I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Dh just had a conversation with me about how he doesn't think is showing any fruit. That the children yell and run off and generally take advantage of me because.

I must admit that especially recently that there behavior has been horrable.

But I don't let them get away with not doing thing. The things happen


I am incredibly frustrated because I work really really hard to be consistent and not threatenna punishment that I won't follow though on. I see Dh doing this all the time. He will threaten to ake away the video he does with them at bed time and then at bed time will back out because nue doesn't want to deal with the fall out. Or he will set a consiqience that I have to enforce.


I also find it madeing that he will walk off when he is too frustrated and leave me to deal with the mess but thinks it is incrwabidbly unacceptable that they will walk off when they are mad.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

:hugheart:hugheart:hugheartYou all are going through such major upheaval that it is bound to affect your kiddos. :hugheart I'm not really sure if too many of us are on our best behavior with all that's going on in the world right now. It's scary, our routines are changed, nothing is normal. It's a strange world we find ourselves in. I can't remember exactly but you are dealing with some extra needs as well that factor in, too.

I promise grace-based parenting does show fruit. It definitely takes awhile. I know it's hard to stay the course when you don't see anything making a difference, but I promise that it is. You will see it. Developing a close and safe bond with our kids is definitely worth it. You being their safe place to land when all of life is crazy is worth it. Keep doing what you know to do: reflect feelings, offer scripts, offer re-do's, set limits, above all take time to connect. I see that TRBI is still offering their 101 classes for free. I know it takes some time to go through, but these classes were hugely encouraging to me. Maybe your husband would also find them helpful? My husband and I went through them together and it was so helpful. I know that the classes were developed for adoptive parents whose children had faced trauma, but we all are facing trauma right now and I think the concepts apply to a variety of situations and lend themselves really well to grace-based parenting.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I am sure they are having a difficult time and probably picking up on yours and DH’s stress. Is it possible to let go of schooling and focus on fun things you can do together right now? It’s really hard to want to connect when you’ve all been stuck together for months, but even something like watching funny cat videos together can help sometimes. I’m really sorry your DH is making it harder. I’m sure he’s having a lot of big feelings too right now.

As far as results there are no guarantees that your kid will turn out x if you do y. GBD is more about doing the right thing because it’s right, not because it will make them (insert whatever expectation here). Usually that eventually produces good human beings. They aren’t done growing yet, none of us are. You are doing a great job. Go easy on yourself, you all have been through a lot lately. :hugheart


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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I'm sorry. You're already dealing with so much, hearing this must feel especially disheartening. :hugheart

With everything that is going on, both for your family personally and for the world generally, it's wholly expected that it would be reflected in their behaviour. You're doing amazing just by doing the necessary things each day.

I know you already know this, but sometimes it can be hard to remember in these difficult seasons: grace-based parenting is focused on the long-term relationship with and emotional health of the child. Sometimes that fruit doesn't show up in short-term behaviour, but they are slowly gaining the tools to show themselves grace and to self-regulate their own behaviour in a non-shame-based way.

With those purposes in mind, do you feel that changes need to be made? It sounds like you're doing well with setting limits, maintaining consistency, and following through with your words. :tu

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

If early bird could deal with changes I would totally drop school and just do thing to connect. But if we stop school she can't deal with starting it back up we will have to add one small thing in at a time, not just over a week or two but over months. I tried one year to take the school holidays and we ended up getting half done that year that we normally would have in things like math because she can not just start back up. When we moved i stoped school for 3 months and then we spent 4 months to get back to a full load, and it took 4 more months before she want complaining every day that school is horable. A full load could be accomplished in 3 or 4 hours of even some what focused work, 2 hours or less of actually focus.

Do I think things need to change? I do wish my children would not scream at me loud enough to leave my ears ringing and actually talk to me about a problem that we could work together to solve rather than huffing and then screaming that I won't understand and stomping off.

Are we or should I say we're we making progress. Yes we were. Things were not this bad before the move and things were getting better. They aren't getting much better now. Even with early bird on add meds we are backsliding some.

I know they have gone though a lot.

I know that early bird is sometimes freaking out not by choice but because things are so freaking loud in her head she can't cope and the endofiens from freaking out make her brain quieter for a tiny bit.

Dh did not grow up in a family that showed grace, honislty as far a behavioral I didn't either. By the time I was 4 if I showed any anger I was isolated untill I was under compmet control and could talk in a non emotial way about it. Dh was spanked and punished if he expressed any decent.

That is not what we want for our children. But some level of self control that thoes method had gotten us to be able to express by middle school would be greatly appreciated.

Dh has neaver been around the girls this much for this long. He has neaver been here while I was trying to do school while within ear shot. When we was working from home in Vermont he was much more acusticoy isolated.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I hear you. I prefer year round schooling too. I cannot stand re-entry troubles. If you had to pick one thing to work on right now what would it be? If you aren’t in a place to troubleshoot it that’s ok too. :hug


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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I don't know.if I was picking one think it would be the screaming. I get screamed at a lot. I work very hard to not tell at them. Early bird will say I am yelling at her if she can detect any frustration in my voice, say the 5 time I have tried to get her attention to do something. (If I touch her finger her attention she will frequently growl and snap her teeth at me like an animal.)

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

:hugheart
Earlybird sounds a lot like my oldest. I have to look at the growth we've seen. She no longer hits. She is using words more than growling. Her recovery time from meltdowns is shorter.

Can you see that you are teaching your kids they matter? That you want them to manage their feelings better but that you also are not scared of or offended by them having feelings?

That is HUGE. Perhaps in this season the fruit will be seen more in you than in the kids. In the ways you are growing as a parent.

Do they like crafts? I have found that doing some small craft kits that have clear finishing points is really helpful. Less creative than the way I like to approach art, but really good through repetitive movements and the sense of satisfaction at completion.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

This has been a challenging time for everyone and it sounds like you have some additional things going on. I would recommend choosing your priorities and letting go of whatever you can right now.

I want to encourage you from the perspective of someone whose oldest is in his last year as a minor child that this is a long term parenting method. The times when it looks fruitless are dips in the overall trend. I've had my own grown up tantrum moments this year. When your almost grown child who is going through his own stuff sees you melt down and says to you, "You seem really upset. Do you need a hug? I accept your apology. I understand" you know the dips were worth it.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I can promise you that if you were screaming back at your girls, they would not scream less. And just think how you would feel about your day at the end of it. You can be proud of yourself for doing what you know is right, even when you're not seeing fruit.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

For the screaming I think a lot of kids (and sometimes adults) with disabilities truly don’t realize how loud they are. They feel strongly and their volume reflects that. C is like this and at 15, I will just say “Do you realize you are screaming/shouting at me?”. And he will try again lower but still not quite a normal volume but he catches it and hits a normal volume on the third try usually. [emoji2356] And yes, he’s totally acutely aware of any whisper of irritation in my voice and feels yelled at then even though I’m not raising my voice at all. :ph It took years to get to this point but I think the breakthrough was when I told him when you are yelling, it stresses me out and my brain can’t even process what you are saying or understand what you need.

When he was little and shrieked a lot, I would cover my ears and loudly say “Ow, that hurts my ears!”. I found it necessary to be a little more dramatic than I normally would. Yours are probably way too old for that.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

AFA screaming, what have you tried to address it already? Are there consequences that you’ve tried? For example, “if you continue screaming at me I will not have energy to go get books at the library later”. Or a sticker Chart for a reward to help with motivation to change the habit of screaming. “Screaming is a bad habit and makes living peacefully as a family difficult. To help form new habits, every day with no screaming gets a sticker at the end of the day. (You could set a shorter goal—every school subject or chore completed gets a sticker).“ Ten stickers means picking out a new book/choosing a meal to cook with mom/going to the park/whatever reward you think would provide some reasonable motivation.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

My BIL has three daughters who went through a lot of trauma and between that and the teen years coming things get pretty dramatic. One thing that has surprisingly helped is getting a camera set up in the main living area of their house. It records automatically whenever there is movement so it captures most of the fights. He has the girls who were having the fight watch the video with him "so he can better understand what happened". They are always surprised how loud they get or how mean they are to each other and really seem to be trying to reign it in...when they remember. :shrug3

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

We have a camera and I can vouch that this works. It hasn’t been plugged in for a long time but when it was he used to look back at the footage. He forgets what he said when heated and denies that he did or said something. Listening to it back was really helpful at realizing his tone, it’s not just me saying it without cause.


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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

this thread has been really helpful :popcorn

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I think you should spend more time together. It always helps when relations with children becomes difficult. Also I noticed that mentioning some small things they like, like favourite color or food, works really well. Try to figure out what is your mistake as parent from your childrens' view. Sometimes we can't understand what's wrong just because we are adults. About yalling, it's the way to say "you don't hear me" that usually means "you don't understand me". You know what makes your kid nervous, try to avoid these topics. Try to talk with your husband about it, tell him that he has to be not only a friend to kids, but an authority also. You always have to do what you've told. In case of promises and punishment also.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

It is hard to spend time with early bird. The only way I have really been successful in the past is to take her some where and that isn't an option we are still not really open- have to wear masks( that she hates) everywhere. If we are st home she will go.odf and read. In her option if she is doing anything that isn't reading at home then something is wrong. I can ocasionally intise her to play a game or paint with me but she will generally end up yelling at me latter that I ' took her reading time'. This was a whole lot better when we started her on her add meds. She was actuly interacting with his but now she is back to being mad that I don't supply her with many new books every day and let her spend all day reading them.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

What is she reading? Well chosen books can be a great tool. If reading is the thing she loves perhaps you can use it to make the reading experience as constuctive and as edifying as possible. Do you have access to library?

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Our library is open for things on hold.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Would something like this help with connection?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/15465...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

It probably would.

I need to make time to sit down and draw with her this weekend

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Ok sending one your way.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Thank you.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

You are a good mom but I know I needed a few gentle reminders that when parenting children who skirt the ADHD line grace based parenting looks different and bears fruit at different times. Adding in the wonderful overhaul that is adolescence can really jack up things up even when they were previously smooth and lovely. More so when they have been an uphill climb for such a long long time.

Adolescence is about when grace based parenting becomes about boundaries and can look a little more like traditional parenting even if the heart of the motivation is different.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Thank you. I have always say that God gave me wiggle worm so that I know I am not the problem. Because early bird has not followed the books as to what a child will do sience she was about two.

Wiggle worm is definitely her own fistly self but the parenting books say I'd you wisper the child will lower their volume to match and she does, early bird will look at you and then scream even louder. It is like that with absolutely everything.

Early bird has an ADHD diagnosis and I still think that she is on the Autistic spectrum.Despite being told by an evaluation at 7 that she has add and anxiety and it can't be Autusm because she looks people in the eye. The thing is she doesn't she will look between your eyes, and if she has her glasses off it seems more like she is looking in your eyes. With her glasses on it is a lot more obvious that she doesn't. But she will fake it well for new people. The only time I have ever seen her sustain eye contact was atthe communion rail at the Lutheran Church we attended in Vermont for 9 months.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

My oldest is 9 and I am hesitant to push for a diagnosis since it seems so many girls get misdiagnosed. :hug2:hug2:hug2 Masking behavior like faking eye contact is so common in girls with ASD. How does this get her denied the Dx that will open doors to supports she needs? :mad

I read that yours wants to go off and read. Would she maybe like just hanging in the same room with you while she reads? You could read your own thing, work on your art, etc? I enjoy very much being close to other people but doing our own stuff. It feels less intense.

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I am hoping being in a bigger state that I will have better options for evaluations here, and her age. I don't think she doesn't have add and angziety - I mean she is related to me. Our Dr put us on the weight list for evaluation about a year ago, I have no idea what has happened to that I need to bring it up with our new Dr.


And yes she very much would love to read with me in the evenings. I need to make it a priority to do with her. But for her to enjoy it I have to actually be reading with her or listening to an audio book with headphones and knitting or anything. It is hard for me to want to sit down and read in the evenings, reading is fun and I enjoy it but being dyslexic it is not a relaxing thing for me at all. I need to try to make that happen this evening because she would enjoy it.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Our eval waitlist has not come to anything either. We are such twinners sometimes. I'm excited for you that a new area might mean better assessments.

Does it "count" for her if you use a kindle with the dyslexic focused font? I don't know if that makes things easier for you or not.

You've got this!

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I appreciate so much y'all dioligong all this with me here.

Today I spent 3.5 hours dealing with her freaking out before she would do her school work.

She has school work to do today because yesterday,they were cutting down a tree a street over and I knew that she would not be able to focus with that noise, even though she hadn't comented appon it during breakfast So when the girls asked to ride bikes I suggested they ride and I walk. We walked over and them watched form 20 min and came home.

At that point I tried to start school ( she has less than 2 hours of work, 3 if she decides she needs to slideout of her seat every few minutes) she completely lost it saying ' I hadn't told her that she would still have to do school' and ' it isn't fair for me to let them do something fun and then expect them to do any sort of work'

After she screamed at me over this for 40min and then stomped in to her room, I told her she could do school Friday after noon and get done with it or she could do school on Saturday with me while Daddy did things with wiggle worm. She proceeded to read in her bed for 6 hours.

This morning when after breakfast I asked her to join me for school work she completely freaked. First she said that she had to do it with Daddy, which was neaver on the table. Then she started screaming that she had things she needed to do first. I calmly reminded her that the issue with doing school yesterday was I let her do something first, so no I was not going to do that today.

She layed in her bed and stairs at the ceiling for 2 hours. I tried to talk to her, about how if the issue was that she wasn't getting time with Daddy then the best way to get time with him was to finish school and then we could all do fun things together. That turned in to about 15 min of her screaming at me and then hideing in her bed randomly screatching at me for 30 min ( every so often I would say ' I can tell you are unhappy, if I can help you let me know) and then she started crying. After 15 of crying when I was sporaticly asking if she would like a huge she finally agreed to that. After a bout 5 min of kind of hugging her on her top bunk she let me carry her to the couch and hold her untill Dh had finished lunch.

We finished with lunch about 30 min ago and she has done half of the school things she needs to do. And actually written a short paragraph, when I told her she could give me a bulit point list, it is honislty the nicest paragraph she has ever written.


I do not understand why she would prefer to spend 3 hours screaming at me and staring at the ceiling than do an hours worth of work. I spend so much more time dealing with her freaking out over something than actually just getting it done.

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---------- Post added at 04:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 PM ----------

And now all on her own she just solved her science problem ( how long would it take you to get to a certain spot in space ) useing conversions with proprtionality, which was the thing she fought the absolute hardest over learning last year because they were stupid and she would neaver use them.

Why couldn't we ha e done this yesterday?!!

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Hugs. R will often spend the entire day resisting a 10 minute task. I don't understand and wish I had some helpful advice. It sounds like you are doing everything right, and someday the fruit will be evident.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Thank you, it helps to know that it isn't just my kid.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Not just your kid, that's for sure! I totally know the feeling of "this approach/technique/tool is not working y he way the experts say it should!" And it's totally bonkers because she's always been a model student at school...so she just does this for me! DH doesn't ask/require her to do anything so not sure if she'd behave the same for him.

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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Does she have ADHD? When mine (inattentive/hyper-brain-activity/non hyper-physical-activity) is bad i do similar and just shut down because figuring out where to start is just. too. hard. I wonder if maybe helping her break it down to an order, or write them all on slips of paper and pull a paper out of the hat, then do what’s on that paper maybe might help? And if I’m way off base feel free to ignore me. :giggle


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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

She does have add and so do I. We just started her on meds this summer. I know her Dr would up her doasage again but I opted to leave it the same though September because I needed to try to have some consostancy, and it isn't like the add is a new thing in our house so I can mostly deal with it.

I am neaver asking her to go off and do things on Her own. I am always there to help her get started and most of the time to help keep her on task. I have stoped writting out all the steps to a process because the list was overwhelming her.

Wiggle worm loves super detailed lists that she could check offeach thing - get out book, get out pensel, open to x page exc. Early bird is overwhelmed by large lists and I work hard to have things kind of nested so that her first list of the school day neaver has more than 7 things, ocasionally on a multy step thing like history when there are two separate things to do I will mark it with an askteic and have a separate list for her at that point so she isn't overhwlmed looking at it.




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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

You are doing such good, hard work with and for your girls. I have no advice, just encouragement to keep on going. :hugheart

Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

Three hours of screaming is really excessive. Your poor ears. :hug You are doing a great job. Have you read the Explosive Child? One of the things promoted by groups that follow Plan B is that you need to identify the lagging skill that is preventing the child from being successful. Is it transitioning to a new activity or fear of not being perfect at something so not wanting to try or ????

You might want to read about pathological demand avoidance. It’s possible that her resistance is anxiety related. https://www.facebook.com/12370870104...dLG0MXTr5t&d=n

You really are doing such a great job staying calm and being patient despite never getting a break.


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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

:hugheart you’re doing a good job mama.


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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I have read the book and recently found the Facebook group - I think that will honistly be more help to me. I also put one of the athors new books in hold atthe library,and the audio book which will be way better for me.

I can not get this child to plan b with me. She starts pulling in all sorts of offencoes, and things that have upset her in the past and gets really worked up and can't ever address the issue. Any opertunity to talk about something that up sets her or that she doesn't liem she takes as an opertunity to talk about everything that has ever upset her or that she doesn't like and she gets all worked up and then will go hide.


She has an anxiety diagnosis from when she was in 2nd grade. But they offered me not help for it at all. I have not looked for help for that here.

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I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

I mean that second paragraph is pretty much what PDA looks like. The problem is hard to solve in their mind, so they avoid collaborating on it. [emoji51] When mine starts listing all the things that have upset him ever, I just shove food at him and come back later. That is one of his hangry signals and I can’t reason with that.

Trying to think how to “side door” collaboration. [emoji848]I think it helps when you see something went well like how she solved her schoolwork problem on her own the other day, or if you have a day that getting started wasn’t awful and then mention that you liked that and ask what she thinks helped make it easier that you could put in place so it’s easier in the future too. I try to have a few suggestions (not necessarily that he will like lol) because he tends to freeze with open ended questions on the spot like that and can’t think. But once he hears my awful ideas, then he’s motivated to push back with some ideas of his own. [emoji23]I give him space to think about it and then check in after 20-30 minutes. You can’t let it go too long or it will be gone forever. Even if you don’t necessarily get an agreement, I think the process helps and he will often decide that whatever thing isn’t really that big of a deal after all, like please don’t make go through all that again. Lol

For anxiety, we’ve done the things and they weren’t all that helpful. Except meds and then he didn’t really need therapy after that. He already learned the skills he just couldn’t access them until we got his brain chemicals more balanced.

Try to find the lagging skill here. For C, reality not matching his unspoken expectations has always been huge and most of the biggest meltdowns have been about that. It’s a LOT better now that he’s older.


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Re: I thought grace baised parenting would show fruit
 

This child reacts almost the same way to praise as to criticism.

'hey early bird, can you come look at this math problem I think you skiped a part' she screatches and kind of slinks away or even runs out of the room yelling don't talk to me.

' hey early bird, this is really really good work here, thank you' she squeeks and slinks down and hids under the table saying don't talk to me.



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